Between the devil and the deep sea
by Aoi Faith
Summary: It was a surprising summer that none of the SPR could guess what had fallen onto them. Naru got unusual clients. He felt something wasn't right with it but he wasn't back from a case. REWRITTEN!


AN: Okay, I know it has been very long time since I updated. It wasn't because I lost my idea or something. After I wrote some more chapters, I did something I myself didn't too fond; Too many OCs. While there were only a few moments that they were needed, I lost my interest after counting how many new OCs I made. Since I am quite stubborn, added by my dislike to stop in the middle of story but the idea still swirling in my mind so I made this a new story with the new setting. This may become my last story in Ghost Hunt because I am currently captivated by Bleach and Code Geass. Though I don't know whether I would write in other place. But no one can't predict the future, huh?

Background setting: They still haven't find Gene and kept their business as usual. Mai and Masako were still fighting like a cat over Naru. They still didn't know anything about Davis family. The client would be my usual OCs since I was too lazy to make a new one and they didn't have any relation to any of the SPR. (I am lazy to make a new personality). I do hope this would be better than the last time.

By the way, if you're wondering, the title was actually an idiom. I just found it fitting. Haha, happy reading.

* * *

I was running to that building. I kept looking at my watch while climbing up the stair. I should have known that Keiko's 'a while' couldn't be trusted, especially when she was shopping. Simply said, after school, Keiko and Michiru asked me to go with them for shopping. Keiko promised me that it would only take a while. After arrived at the dress store, they kept shoving some summer dress to me and trying some for themselves.

I had to admit it was fun. It had been a while since I got time for something like this. I even bought one. It wasn't because I planned it. Keiko and Michiru were planned to buy it for me but I couldn't let them spend their money for me so I bought it for myself.

After paid the dress, I just realized that I had been very very LATE!

So here I was, in front of the SPR office while panting and sweating heavily. Ugh, it was so hot. I took a deep breath nervously. I peaked inside while trying to not make any noise. The bell was dinging but it was only faintly so I thought Naru wouldn't hear it. I tiptoed and closed the door with a relieved huff.

"Late." Naru said beside me. I yelped in surprise. He was leaning in front of his office door while crossing his hand. He looked at me intently as if waiting for my answer.

"Uh, you see…" I started. "I got… um.. Detention! Yeah! Hahaha!" I lied while averting my gaze from his calculating gaze.

He stared at me for a while. I could feel my sweat became cold under his gaze.

"I see." Naru said. I sighed in relief. It seemed he bought my lies. "Your detention consists buying dresses with your friends which made you forgot time that made you ran here all the way, am I right?" He smirked at me. "Finish your work; I won't let you go home before you finished it all." He said and went into the office.

"I got caught…" I muttered. I sighed. I then realized that I was still holding the paper bag which consist my summer dress that I bought. I slapped my forehead. Of course he knew!

"Mai!" Naru said from inside the office.

"YES!" I yelped. Did he have hidden camera installed here! Or maybe he had sixth sense! Or… Or… he left his eyes here! How he knew that I hadn't start yet!

"Tea."

I sighed. "Of course that tea addicted narcissist!" I grumbled and made my way to the kitchen. "Could it hurt just to say 'please'? Every time he told me to make tea is only 'Mai, tea.' ARGH!"

My name is Taniyama Mai, 16 years old senior high school student. I was working in Shibuya Psychic Research, SPR for short. As you see, my boss was not others than the one who caught me late, Shibuya Kazuya. He was 17 years old. He always used black colored clothing. Even it was summer like this. He was also tea addict. He could drink two pots of HOT tea for a day. I did make an ice tea for him but…

_Flashback_

_I placed the ice tea on his table and turned to leave. I knew he wouldn't say 'thanks'. He had no manner at all._

"_Mai." He called._

_I turned to look at him. _

"_Did I ask you to make ice tea for me?" He asked without look up from anything he read._

"_Well….no. But it is hot so I thought…." I was cut off by him._

"_Take that and make the usual for me." _

_I looked at him utterly speechless. In this hot day, he wanted to drink hot tea? Was he not feel hot at all? I knew that this office had AC installed._

"_Mai, I know I have good looking. If you had finished checking me out, take that and bring me my tea." He mocked me, still didn't look up from his job but I definitely saw his mouth tugged up a bit into a smirk. _

_I blushed furiously. I took the tea and immediately went out to the kitchen. _

"_That narcissist!" I grumbled all the way while waiting the water to boil. I would definitely pay him back!_

_Let's just say I made sure that the tea he got was very hot boiled tea. But how he managed to finish that up was beyond me._

_End of flashback._

I knocked at Lin's office when I waited the water to boil. There was no answer so I assumed he went out. Lin was Naru's assistant. His full name was Lin Koujo. He was also Naru's guardian. He was an onmyouji. He had five shikis under his control. He was also very quiet but still he was polite unlike someone. After I served Naru his tea, I went to do my job. The bell on the door was dinging.

"Welcome!" I said.

"Hey, Jou-chan!" Bou-san greeted with his usual grin.

"Bou-san!" I greeted happily. "John!"

John waved at me with smile on his face.

Bou-san as I called was a monk. His name was Takigawa Houshou. He was a good man. He was like my older brother. He knew how to light up the mood and he loved to tease Naru even that all was fired back at him. John was a priest. His full name was John Brown. He looked young but in fact, he was older than me and Naru. He was always a pacifist. The two was also unofficial SPR team. Even Naru always called them if there was any case in.

"Mai, Takigawa-san, keep your voice down. It's not a café." Naru said. He was standing in front of his office.

"Naru-san, good afternoon." John greeted politely.

"Hey, Naru!" Bou-san greeted. "Ugh, why are you still in your black glory? Don't you feel hot?"

"What I want to wear is not your business." Naru shot back.

Bou-san gawked at him. I knew how Bou-san's feeling. Since I got the same answer when I asked the similar question, not that blunt of course. John chuckled a bit.

The bell was dinging again. This time, there were two boys on the doorstep. The first boy looked at the paper then at the door. "Yup, this is the place." He said.

I went to them while the other looked at them curiously. "Hello, are you lost?" I asked them.

That boy frowned, obviously offended I think. "If this is SPR, then no." He said irritated.

"Hey kiddo, where are your parents?" Bou-san asked. "They would be worried if you didn't go home."

"They are working. Is there something wrong if I came to ask your assistant? Was there any age limit or something?"

"Well…no. But… it is unusual…" I tried to answer without offended this boy, I tried anyway.

"So? Isn't having a seventeen years old boss usual?" He glanced at Naru. I surprised that he knew Naru was the boss and he did know how old Naru was. I thought he would think that Bou-san was the boss. Many of our clients thought so. "Besides, need I remind that _your _job is dealing with the _unusual_?" He asked.

"Sai, be nice." The other boy reminded.

"It's not my fault! They start it first!" Sai protested. He looked at Naru as if waiting for his decision.

"You are right. I apologize on behalf of my assistant here." Naru said. I was surprised that he was willing to apologize to this kid. "Mai, make some drink for them."

I went to the kitchen in confuse. I didn't think that Naru would want to deal with kids. When I came out, Naru had prepared the laptop. The boys were sitting opposite him. John was sitting on the other couch. Bou-san was leaning to the couch that John seated on. I placed their drinks to each of them before took my place beside Naru. I took out my note. Naru nodded at them.

"First I will introduce myself. My name is Arata Sai. This is my cousin, Akira. I am ten years old while he is seven years old." He started. "I would go to the point." Sai continued. "First, I experience it in my summer house in the summer. The summer house was in private land with a private beach and all. It was near the public beach but they were divided by a long rock. The rocky path was facing ours while the other was tall and smooth. So nobody could enter our place nor they could see it but we could peak on hire some maids and servants to live there so the house is well-keep even we don't use it."

"Second, no rapping sound, no cold air, no strange voice, no flying stuff, nothing strange with the house, as a poltergeist would do. Or so that I read about. I am not very expert about this but I do some research. However," at this Sai sighed like he was disappointed at something. "I have some disturbing pictures and videos." He took out an envelope and a video camera from his school bag and placed it on the table. "Please take a look of these."

Naru took the envelope and took out the pictures. There were five pictures. The first picture was a window, the second was a glass door to the balcony, the third was a door, the fourth was the same type of door of the third but was shot from different place, and the last one was a garden. If you asked me, I would say nothing strange in the picture.

"It's taken from the security camera from my family's summer house and those are the disturbing pictures which I meant. I hope you have known what I am talking about , right?" Sai said. I had a feeling that Sai said that not for asking for an agreement. Akira sighed at him. It seemed that he understood what Sai tried to imply.

Naru studied the picture for a while as were Bou-san and John while I was looking at Akira who looked worried about something. Naru placed the photos on the table and looked back to Sai.

"You had a guess, huh? Well, I will tell you." Sai said. He pointed at the first picture. "Look closely at the edge of the window." That we did. "There was some water dots like someone blowing a hot breath there like for example...breathing."

"Ah, you're right." I said.

"It could be from the water inside the kitchen. Maybe that time there was someone boiling the water?" Bou-san said.

"If it was, there would be on at least half of the window. Besides, there was a thumb mark. It looked like that there was someone who breathed there with their hand on the window." Naru said.

I looked at the picture closely. Was there someone outside the window? I could see the other side of the window there but clearly no one was there. I shivered at the thought.

"Let me guess, the second one..." Bou-san looked at the picture closely. On the railing, there was something red and shaped like a hand. "This one, right?" He pointed at the red mark. Sai nodded.

"The third and the fourth seemed normal for me." I said.

"Look at the time, Mai." Naru said. I found out that the time was same, around half past three in the morning. "If this was a same room, it meant something tried to open the door from outside but it didn't affect the inside's doorknob." He deducted.

"That is my room. That time, I and Aki were in the room. I heard something like someone tried to open the knob of locked door but since the doorknob in my room was unmoved so I dismissed it until I found out something strange with the house." Sai explained. "Then the last picture."

"Something stepped on the grass." Naru answered smoothly.

Sai clapped his hand. "That 'something' is what I asked you to find and get rid off if it was really something malicious."

"How could I know if these pictures were not modified?" Naru asked.

"Then, I'll ask you to look at the video. It's an old camera so it is recorded in a cassette."

Naru did as Sai asked. I watched over his shoulder as were John and Bou-san. It was night on the beach. I guessed it was near the summer house that Sai mentioned. The sound of the wave could be heard clearly.

"Sai, are you sure it's okay to go out at night?" Akira's voice could be heard. The camera shot at Akira. "Hey, Sai!" Akira shoved the camera off his face. "Stop it."

Sai laughed. "It's alright! If something happen, just run as fast as you can back to house. I don't ask you to accompany me anyway. You can go back now if you want!" Sai offered. "I don't want to scare little Aki." At that, Akira grumbled.

_The picture was moving again so I guessed both of them were continue to walk. _

_They were getting near the rocky border that separated their private beach and the public beach. "I guess there's nothing." Sai said. He sighed in disappointment. "I am wasting my cassette. Do you think we could erase and reuse these?" Sai asked but he didn't receive any answer. He shot the camera at Akira who was looking at the beach intently. "Aki?"_

"_I'm sure…" Akira whispered._

_Splash! I heard a strange sound. I didn't know why but this one was clearly not sound like wave. It was more like someone jumped into the water._

"_Do you hear that?" Akira asked. Both of them halted. Splash! "Hey, Sai, I have a bad feeling about this, really really bad. Can we go back, please?__ Come on, Sai!__"_

_Sai shot his surroundings. "Wait, I'm going to take some evidences." The motion was stopped once again. "I don't see anything wrong." He said in frustration. "I'm not going before I got it!"_

"_Argh, alright!." The camera was snatched from Sai's hand. It shot at something wet walking to them because the sand formed wet footsteps. It was walking to them. I could see faintly there was a figure of the person. Zrt! Ssssh! Zrt! Zrrrrrtttttt! The video's picture suddenly became strange and there were some ear-splitter shrieking sounds. _

"_Evidence gotten, now RUN!" Akira's voice could be heard. The picture was back to normal. It was moving wildly. I thought both of them were running without stopping the camera. _

Suddenly Naru stopped the camera and rewind it once more. This time he stopped at the moment when Akira shouted to Sai to run. He zoomed in at something. There was something there, standing and I could swear, it was grinning at them.

Sai waited for Naru's respond. I could see the worry in his eyes. I thought he was serious about this. He looked like really hope that Naru would take this case. Naru smiled a bit. That showed his interest. "I'll take this case." Naru said.

Sai couldn't stop from throwing his hand in victory and smiled widely. "Great! There are a lot of rooms there and I don't mind if you took your family. The more the merrier!" Sai stopped for a while when Akira pinched his hand. "Oh, right. Maybe you shouldn't. If that something was dangerous…" He laughed awkwardly.

"I want room provided for my team, three women and five men and also a big room for my equipments. Could you prepare that?" Naru asked.

"Of course!" Sai agreed. "So when you would come?"

"Tomorrow. Leave the address to my assistant here." Naru mentioned me to Sai.

Sai nodded. "Oh, before I forgot." Sai took something from his pocket and gave it to Naru.

Naru took it and we looked at it over Naru's shoulder. It was a check. I looked at the amount of money in surprise. "Sai-kun, are you sure about this? I mean, your father would be mad if he knew this. You can simply write the money and gave it to the other like that. Besides, we usually take the payment after the case solved."

"Father wouldn't be angry at me just because I spent my money. It's not like I couldn't get the money back anyway." Sai dismissed it easily. "Of course, I would pay you after the case finished. Even if you didn't solve it, you still get the money. It's not bad, isn't it?"

Naru offered the check back to Sai. "As Mai had said, we won't take the payment until the case solved." Naru said.

Sai smirked. "Are you sure? It is my case so you should follow my rule." He said. "Just take it."

Naru looked at him with a bored look. "I will do as I want and I always do." Naru answered.

Sai took the check back. "Okay then, I will give it after the case solved." Sai said. "Well then, I should go home. I will wait for you at the summer house tomorrow." Sai wrote the address and gave it to me.

Sai stood up and walked to the door while Akira hurried to follow him. Akira stopped at the door and looked back at us. "Um… you can consider again. Sai wouldn't hold any grudge if you decided to back off." He said hesitantly.

"Don't worry, my boss here wouldn't take back his words." I said to him.

Akira looked at the door again. He looked at Naru one more time before bowed and ran after his cousin.

"That Akira kid is cute." Bou-san commented as the door was closed. "I like him more than that Sai kid. He looks like Child sized Naru." Naru glared at him. Bou-san immediately raised his hands as if he was given up.

"Mai, call the other and tell them to come at eight sharp." Naru told me. I immediately took my phone and started to dial the other team's number but stopped as I realized something.

"Naru, did you say five men? Would Yasuhara-san come too?"

Naru sighed. "Mai, are you too dumb that you even can't remember your own schedule?" He asked out of blue.

"Haaa?" I said in confuse.

"Umm, Mai, isn't the summer holiday began tomorrow?" John said.

I just realized that he was right. I completely forgot about it because I was too panicked today. Naru shook his head and went into his office. But he didn't forget his 'Mai, tea' words. I fumed at him.

Couldn't he just point it out!

**Unknown's pov**

"How's it?" The man asked from the phone.

"He agreed." The other answered.

The man let out a relieved breath. "I almost think that I have to persuade him." He said. He cringed. "He might throw a fit at me."

"…"

"Are you still mad at me?"

"Mad? Of course not. I hope you are here so that I could strangle you, cut you to pieces while you are still choking, and threw it for fishes in the ocean. I would make sure your death would be very slow and painful. Yes, I am not mad."

"Okay, you're not mad but you're furious." The man said. "Should I come?"

"No, not now." The other paused. "If he couldn't handle it alone, I would make sure that you knew and came here to meet me because I'm going to kick your ass. Be ready for a punch."

The man laughed. "He would be able to handle it. I have a pride in him." He said. "After all, he is the Oliver Davis."

* * *

The next chapter would be up in a while. Well, I would love to have a beta again. Do not worry if your grammar wasn't really great, I was more wanting an opinion to be honest. (But please do not be angry whether I would follow it or not)

Sorry for a long hiatus, XP, actually I want to stop writting but it was too tempting to be stopped.

Well, I would love for reviews.


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